[labens]

I loaded TF2D on my Touch the day I recieved my Diamond and didn't activate the Diamond for a week. I even copied Opera 9 onto the Touch, so the look and feel was very much like the Diamond. The responsiveness of the Touch was fantastic. All my apps worked well and I seldom had to reset the device. Physically, the rounded corners of the Touch lets it sit in a pocket much more comfortably than the Diamond. It's more comfortable in the hand as well.

The only compelling reason to activate the Diamond was the VGA screen and WiFi. I wanted a device that I could navigate my brokerage account sites from and have more data on the screen. True, the fonts can be so small at times you go blind, but I'm used to this from my UMPC. Which brings me back to why I wanted tne Diamond, WiFi. I've been using wmWiFiRouter on my old PPC6700 to connect my UMPC and work laptop to the internet when I want to work outside the house/office. Previously, my VPN software would not work over Bluetooth/PAN. The Diamond seems to fit the bill for what I want in a single phone.

Now that I've used the Diamond for a few weeks, I'm really debating sending it back. The problem is, I still carry the PPC6700 to work remotely because I feel safer tethering with it. It's probably a phylosophical question as to whether using the 6700 to tether is any more right or wrong than hacking the Diamond to tether undetecked, but I do feel less wrong.

Beyond that, I find many flaws with the Diamond that I don't have with the Touch. I've got the same software installed on both, and it seems buggy on the Diamond.

- Responsiveness of TF3D is slow. I got spoiled with how snappy TF2D was on the Touch. I could load TF2D on the Diamond, but that would be like loading Windows XP on your new laptop when you like the Glass features of Vista and your old laptop runs XP just fine.
- The Diamond locks up occassionally for no appearent reeason.
- It locks up frequently when I try to download a file through PIE.
- Often when it locks up, a soft reset will not suffice. I have to remove the battery for a few second before it will succesfully boot and load TF3D.
- Having to remove the cover to reset is really annoying, especially with the frequency it is needed.
- WiFi does not always connect. Sometimes I have to soft reset first.
- I use QuickMenu to switch from one app to another and I find TF3D likes to come to the front frequently, requiring me to have to repeat my actions.
- If the ringer is also set to vibrate, the caller can hear a buzz when you answer the phone. I've never had this "feature" on any other phone/PDA and get a lot of complaints.
- If I have the phone in my right pants pocket and my bluetooth headest on my left ear, the reception starts to cut out. Every other phone/PDA works fine 20 feet away with the same headset.
- The lack of microSD slot makes taking a few movies along for the plane ride a bit challenging. I used to just pop it on a different card. Now I need to decide which music to delete. Argh.
- Same goes for stand alone GPS software, can't carry extra maps on another card, have to download them instead.
- Direction keys (d-pad) is poor.
- Volume up/down buttons are so flush with the unit they are difficult to find by touch alone sometimes. Though I do prefer buttons to the slider on the Touch.
- No dedicated camera button. I used to get annoyed when I accidentally launched the camera on the Touch or PPC6700, but at least I could launch the camera when I needed it.
- EVDO drops to 1x frequently.
- Phone reception is not as strong as the Touch. I had difficulty making phone calls at my local Taget, which I know to be the most difficult place to get a signal of the places I am likely to go locally.

So perhaps most of my complaints about the Diamond are software related and can be fixed. I think some of them go away by turning off TF3D. But I'm not sure I want to wait it out. I'm leaning heavily toward returning it for a refund and sticking with the Touch, which has proven reliable. I'll miss the VGA resolution and viewability from any angle the most.